


I Saw Batman Kissing Santa Claus

by cattyk8



Category: DCU, Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Eve, M/M, Santa Claus - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 15:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17286728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattyk8/pseuds/cattyk8
Summary: Hernan convinces Kirk to spread a little cheer for the holidays.





	I Saw Batman Kissing Santa Claus

“Remind me again why I am doing this,” Kirk Langstrom, also known as the Batman, asked his boyfriend.

Hernan Guerra, who had traded his rather austere navy-and-black Superman attire for the red-and-white of a Santa Claus costume smiled. “’Tis the season for Christmas cheer, and you could not bear for the poor children of our twin cities to suffer the loss of hope and faith that would result were Santa Claus not to deliver presents into their stockings.”

“No, that’s why _you_ are doing this,” Kirk corrected. “I, for some reason, gave up my lab space to a toy-making enterprise for the past two weeks and am now standing outside in the snow in the dead of night. I have no idea why.”

That indulgent smile continued to grace his boyfriend’s face, beautiful despite that ridiculous synthetic white beard. “Ah, _amor_ , you and I, we are like Elsa in _Frozen_.”

“I’m sorry. What?”

Hernan laughed. “You know. The cold doesn’t bother us anyway.”

With that, he swept his grumpy Bat into his arms and proceeded to lead him in a waltz through the snowy night sky, humming all the while as the city lights twinkled like stars beneath their feet.

Kirk would have been charmed had he not recognized the tune. “Are you humming ‘Let It Go’?”

They had watched the movie in the theater at Hernan’s sister Valentina’s insistence, wearing disguises so they would not be recognized. Kirk had seen right away that Hernan had felt a connection with the main character, a girl who struggled to control powers that had as much (if not more) potential to harm as hurt.

Thinking of how the other man had leaned forward in his chair as the animated princess had pulled on her gloves, Kirk allowed himself the rare indulgence of stroking a hand through Hernan’s silky locks. Only to scowl when his fingers tangled in the white wig Superman was wearing.

But Hernan laughed, and something inside Kirk warmed despite the cold and the gloom of their surroundings. “What of it?” he asked. “It is a good song, and it reminds me sometimes my powers can help in ways that have nothing to do with battle or life-or-death emergencies.” He smiled. “Like now, like dancing in the sky with _mi amor_.”

Kirk settled for patting Hernan on one well-padded shoulder. “You’re such a romantic.”

“It is the way of my people.”

Kirk raised an eyebrow, thinking of the data Lex Luthor had left with them. “Kryptonians were romantics?”

Hernan laughed. “No, but the Guerras are!”

At that moment, Kirk knew he would suffer any number of freezing nights just to keep his lover smiling like that.

He thought back to Hernan telling him about what he planned to do this Christmas Eve, after they’d gone to midnight mass with his sister’s family.

 _My parents came to America with nothing but mouths to feed and the belief that they could make a better life for themselves and their children here than they could at home._ Hernan had told him.

_But for many years, that meant living paycheck to paycheck, working nights behind counters and cash registers after toiling the days away in the fields, being away from home on holidays. All for the promise of an education for Valentina and me, that we might better ourselves and be more than the migrant workers our parents were. Certainly there was no extra money for presents beyond little trinkets we made for each other out of odds and ends. Certainly there was no money to perpetuate such a myth as San Nicolas._

Kirk thought of his own parents, their sad house, sad life. His father a disapproving stranger, his mother always with too many excuses for the man she married and too few for the one she’d borne. They hadn’t been rich by any stretch of the imagination, but their financial situation hadn’t been as bad as Hernan’s. Still, they’d been destitute in ways Hernan had not been. And he had none of the rose-lit memories of Christmastime that Hernan did.

So he’d been dubious, at the time, when Hernan had bounded into the tower one day in early December, a stack of letters in his hand that he’d apparently swiped from one of the public schools in the lower east side.

 _If their parents can’t afford to leave them presents from Santa Claus, then we can do it,_ Hernan had said jubilantly. His eyes were lit with an excitement Kirk had rarely seen from him, his face creased with a joy Valentina had once described to him, but Kirk himself had never seen. Hernan had been boyish with his plans and his enjoyment of the season.

Their plans had quickly expanded until it was clear that two men—even if one of them was Superman—could not hope to carry the burden of fulfilling the yuletide dreams of the underprivileged kids of two cities. Gotham alone had more children who needed something to smile about on Christmas than they could handle.

So exactly three weeks before Christmas, the two heroes who made up the Justice League met with a man with a reputation for having more money than god—and a soft spot for children. Bruce Wayne had heard them out then proceeded to strong-arm his charitable enterprise, the Wayne Foundation, into anteing up for a good amount of what needed to be done.

The foundation would take care of the children in the shelters, orphanages, and government housing initiatives.

Which left the kids in the tenements, the rundown apartments in the seediest areas of the city. Not quite as gargantuan a task as the one they’d set out to do, but large enough that neither Hernan nor Kirk got very much sleep in the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve.

They’d completed the last toy just before they’d had to leave to join Valentina and her family for the procession to their church for Buena Noche. Then they’d left to handle the delivery.

Kirk had been unwilling to don a Santa costume, but had allowed Hernan to help him into a forest green jacket with an off-white wool lining. And if he had not protested the green pixie cap with holes carefully cut to allow for his uniform’s ears quite as vehemently as he otherwise would have, well, he reasoned that it was only because Hernan had distracted him by peppering kisses all over his face.

They had chosen to divide and conquer, with Kirk handling the bulk of Gotham and Hernan taking on Metropolis before rejoining to finish off Kirk’s somewhat longer list. And while the US government might frown on their incurring over a thousand counts of breaking and entering should anyone bother to press charges, they doubted President Waller would want the PR disaster that would result were they to talk about what they had done.

Still, now it was five in the morning, and though night still reigned, the sky was not quite as inky black as it had been when they’d started.

“We have one last house to visit, _cariño_ , and then we can return home and enjoy the warmth of our bed,” Hernan said, hugging him close as they descended.

“Very well,” Kirk said. “We can do the last one together.”

It should have been like all the other houses. They’d sneak in, leave the presents, and sneak back out again. But as Kirk had stuffed the stockings pinned to the wall with thumb tacks, Hernan had paused, eyes fixed on something above him. Kirk had turned and followed his gaze, seen a tiny sprig of mistletoe. Then he had let his eyes rove down to the smirking face of his lover, framed though it was in that horrific white beard and wig.

Hernan had slowly, smilingly, lowered himself down into the conveniently placed couch behind him.

Crooked a finger at Kirk, staring dumbfounded with an empty sack in hand.

Patted his knee when Kirk had stepped forward slowly, as if hypnotized.

He was a couple of feet away when Hernan reached over and _yanked_. And the Bat landed in an ignoble heap across his lover’s lap.

Only to find it was a good job his mutated biology didn’t require him to breathe quite as often as a human did, because his superpowered lover proceeded to kiss him within an inch of suffocation as it was.

“I never did answer your question,” Hernan said huskily against his lips.

“Question?” Kirk found himself stroking that damn wig of his.

“About why you were doing this.”

“Oh?” He twisted some of that fake white hair, tugged at his lover’s beard playfully. “Why is that?”

Hernan grinned. “Because you love me,” he said smugly before covering Kirk’s lips with his own once more.

If enhanced hearing picked up the excited pounding of a child’s heartbeat or the soft click of a camera phone, neither man acknowledged it as they stayed liplocked for several moments more, then left the way they came, chuckling softly to one another.

“Let’s go home, _mi amor_ ,” one shadowed figure murmured to another as they were framed by the faint dawn light coming through the doors leading to the apartment’s tiny, tiny balcony.

But his lover stopped him when they would have taken to the skies. “Hernan,” Kirk murmured as he tugged off that ridiculous hat and—finally—wig and beard.

“Hmm?”

“I would not be entirely opposed if you decided to do this again next year.”

“Perhaps,” the Kryptonian replied, voice pitched a little louder now. “Assuming we don’t find ourselves on the news tomorrow morning, with the headline, ‘I Saw Batman Kissing Santa Claus.’”

A tiny peep could be heard from inside the apartment, followed by the unmistakable sound of an electronic file being trashed.

The two lovers smiled and soared into the Christmas dawn, headed for the City of Tomorrow, for their tower and a well-deserved rest.

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever _Justice League: Gods and Monsters_ fic, a week late for Christmas. I hope the characters aren't _too_ OOC! Inspired by the awesome people in the Gods & Monsters Discord server. Happy Christmas, guys! Hope you don't hate this.
> 
> Note: Unbetaed and unedited except for some self-proofing. All mistakes are mine.


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